The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering

Philip Dawe

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This pre-American Revolution satire published in London shows John Malcolm, British customs agent in Massachusetts, tarred, feathered, and forced to drink tea. The event of January 24, 1774 occurred soon after the Boston Tea party of December 16, 1773 where colonists famously dumped imported tea into the harbor to protest a tax levied by the British Parliament. This is the earliest known representation of the later event with strong tonal contrasts and broad details produced by a worn printing plate.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art